Preface

The out-of-body experience is an extraordinary, mystifying, exhilarating,
sometimes frightening, and often life-changing experience. It is a window of
insight into our nature, our potential, and our place in the universe.I hope this bibliography will help unfold
our understanding of these timeless and fundamental matters.

The strength of the total body of evidence for OBE is overwhelming and
impels us to stretch well beyond the comfort of our traditional worldview.It calls into question the validity of
ordinary perception, our belief in form, physicality, time and space, our
identity, and indeed, the nature of reality.Perhaps a more confident understanding of these matters
will follow a shift in our current, materialistic worldview.Perhaps a better understanding of OBE will
promote that shift.

OBE awakens us to consciousness as the great frontier.In that awakening, we stand at a vast
horizon of discovery that comprehends virtually all human concern.

Definition

Like a dream, the "out-of-body experience" is a subjective
experience in an alternate state of consciousness.But unlike a dream, an OBE is experienced as real--often as even
more real and vivid than normal waking consciousness.An understanding of OBE is elusive, and depends on one’s
metaphysical perspective. The practical definition proposed by
parapsychologist, Charles Tart, is that it is
simply a state in which one perceives from a point in space apart from one's
physical body.

Out-of-body experiences are similar to visual, auditory, and tactile
perceptions, but are not mediated by physical senses.Moreover, the types of OBE perceptions go beyond those we
associate with the senses of our physical body.The experiencer seems to have unlimited mobility and thus may
"travel" to any desired spatial location at unlimited speed, or even
instantaneously.Some experience no
limits in the time dimension. Direct communication with other life forms seems
possible.Non-ordinary realities may be
experienced, including locales associated with the “afterlife.”Some report access to the thoughts of
others.In general, normal physical
limitations do not apply.

Usually, an OBE occurs spontaneously and unexpectedly, though a few have
been able to induce the state deliberately.The most commonly known practitioners of deliberate OBE are shamans and
mystics of virtually all cultures worldwide.Spontaneous OBE is normal and occurs commonly in every population, but
because of its extraordinary nature, it is not commonly recognized for what it
is.Experiencers usually believe it is
a vivid dream.Psychiatrists have
established that is not a mental disorder, such as depersonalization, autoscopy
(or phenomenon of the double or doppelganger), dissociation (multiple
personality disorder), psychogenic amnesia, or psychogenic fugue.

Near-death experience (NDE) is a
major type of OBE.NDE is usually
induced by serious trauma, and has a distinctive phenomenology (subjective
description). Of all that has been published on OBE, the NDE literature contains
some of the most personally significant and transformative experience.Like any perceptions, NDEs are subject to
various interpretations, and ordinary OBE provides a broader context for their
interpretation.

Nomenclature

"Astral projection" was the earlier common term for OBE. More
recently, "out-of-body experience," was suggested by parapsychologist
Charles Tart and has become the standard term.
Other terms include:

altered mind-body perception

astral elevation

astral excursion

astral travel

autoscopic hallucination

bilocation

coat travel

consciousness localized in
space outside the body

depersonalization

disembodiment

dissociation between body and
mind

dormiens vigila

dream time

dream travel

dream walking

eckstacy

ecsomatic experience

ecsomaticity

ecstasys

eidolon

ESP projection

etheric projection

ex-corporeal consciousness

exteriorization

externalisation

extrasensory travel

extrasomatic localization

false sight

flight of the soul

interdimensional traveling

kosha-state

leaving the body

little death

mental projection

mind projection

mind traveling

mystic death

night travel

projection of consciousness

projection of the etheric
body

pseudopia

psi-projection

psychic navigation

psychic travel

psychological death

psychonavigation

sacred silence

scrying in the spirit vision

self-projection

separation

shamanic journey

shamanic ecstasy

slipping out

soul travel

spirit travel

statuvolism

trance journey

traveling clairvoyance

traveling ESP

traveling telepathy

traveling spiritually

Contents
of the Bibliographies

This bibliography includes titles of
books; booklets; articles from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals;
self-published works; audio and video tapes; and files from the Internet that
deal with OBE.It includes any material
dealing with the phenomenon, from subjective to objective, skeptical to
speculative, and scientific to popular.Included are personal experiences, collections of case histories,
phenomenologies (subjective descriptions), induction techniques,
anthropological descriptions, psychological descriptions, population surveys,
historical surveys, cross-cultural surveys, theoretical explorations, research
methodologies, research reports, biography, popularizations,
counter-hypotheses, and fiction.Most
of the titles deal exclusively with OBE phenomena while many others are more
general in scope and touch only lightly upon OBE.

There
are several other subject areas, such as death survival, lucid dreaming (LD),
spiritualism, shamanism, and mediumship, that are related to OBE for which
titles are not included except as they touch on OBE.

I have made no attempt to evaluate
or restrict titles, and the inclusion of a title does not reflect a position I
hold about its content nor its reliability.

Please submit other titles for this bibliography, corrections of errors, and
annotations.You can reach me by
sending email to RobertBushman at comcast dot net.(I have written my address in this way to elude spammers.To use it, adjust it to the standard
format.)

Arrangement of the OBE
Bibliographies

Because it may be difficult to find the titles you want from the
comprehensive list, which is quite long, I have classified the titles into
shorter lists by subject.I have also
included a short, selected list that contains what I hope are the best,
frequently cited titles, classic first-hand experiences, and other quality
titles offering good overview treatments by the major writers.

The major works have, of course, been reviewed in other publications.Those reviews are listed along with other
titles, and are also listed under the titles reviewed on the comprehensive
list.

The subject lists are arranged by publication date.The Selected and Comprehensive lists are
arranged by author.

Notation Convention Used in the
OBE Bibliographies

In my format of bibliographic citation, the name of the publisher is
followed by the place of publication.Articles appearing in serial publications are shown with volume, issue
number (if any), and page number(s).For example, “15(3):121-128” means that the article cited appears in
volume 15, issue number 3, on pages 121 through 128. When works are published
by more than one publisher, the original publisher is usually shown first, as
are first edition dates, as many titles have been republished and show later
publication dates.

Abbreviations Used in the OBE
Bibliographies

biblincludes
a bibliography

caapproximately

cfsee,
in particular

ffand
those related pages which follow

illusincludes
illustration(s)

indexincludes
an index

ndno
date

plength
of work in pages

pplocated
at the following page numbers

pseudpseudonym

refsincludes
references to sources

Availability of OBE Titles

Only a few items of this bibliography are now in print.The classics get reprinted, like those by
Monroe, Fox, and Muldoon, but most others fade quickly into the vast
ephemera.It is difficult to find many
titles even in large research libraries.Interlibrary loan is helpful.The best libraries to search are those that specialize in the
paranormal, like the libraries of the Association for Research and
Enlightenment (ARE) at Virginia Beach, Virginia;
the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), and the Parapsychology
Foundation in New York City.Currently, the publishers of the most
in-print OBE titles are Hampton Roads in Charlottesville,
Virginia and Llewellyn Publications in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Used book dealers can frequently find out-of-print OBE titles, and there are
excellent resources for searching for them on the web, such as Abebooks and Bookfinder.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to those who have contributed items to this bibliography: Carlos Alvarado
of the Parapsychology Foundation, Bruce Greyson of the International
Association for Near Death Studies, Melissa Jager, Fowler Jones, Andy Kolovos
of the ASPR Library, Joanne McMahon of the Parapsychology Foundation's library,
Bob Peterson, Angela Thompson Smith, Rhea
White of the Exceptional Human Experience Network, Giulia De
Vivo (Italian titles), and Ruth White of the ARE Library.
Special thanks to Linda Henkel for her editing. I alone am responsible for the
errors, omissions, and mis-classifications.

Research Interest for OBEers

I would like to hear from those who can have OBEs deliberately and who may
be interested using that ability in cooperation with others to develop useful
information and technologies.To
contact me, send an email to RobertBushman at comcast dot net.(I have written my address in this way to
elude spammers.To use it, adjust it to
the standard format.)